Noticing
by Shattered Midnight Dreams
Summary: Hiiragizawa Eriol reflects on the moment that he realised that his otomadachi was in fact an extremely attractive girl. ExT


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The insane musings of the authoress: This little one-shot just popped up in my head one day after I realised I was starting to see things differently. Plus, it was an excuse for some ExT, so how could I resist? 

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Disclaimer: I don't own CCS. 

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Noticing

An ExT oneshot by Shattered Midnight Dreams

I guess I never really noticed it before. You were always just my otomodachi, my Tomoyo-chan. I saw you every day, and it happened so slowly that I wasn't even aware of it. Not until that guy in our class looked at you that way, and I was furious. Then I looked at you that way myself, wondering what he found so fascinating about my Tomoyo. And I saw you. For the first time in years I truly saw you. Not the timeless image of my otomodachi that will forever be engraved on my mind as Tomoyo, but I saw _you_. Then and there. The way you really looked like then, standing right in front of me. 

And I understood why he looked at you like that. Understood why practically every boy in our year and above at school looked at you like that. I understood because then _I_ wanted to look at you like that. And I was shocked.

It was so gradual. We grew up together, the two of us joined at the hip, Eriol and Tomoyo, and if you called one name, you inevitably got the two of us. You were always willing to do any boy's activity, so I didn't think of you as a girl, really. It's not that I thought of you as a boy, either, but… It's hard to explain. You were neither. You were like a species all your own, Tomoyo-chan gender, not girl, not boy. 

Of course, I understood that you didn't look like me. But you weren't one of the guys that I always had to look tough in front of. You weren't one of the girls, either, with their sparkly bows and party dresses, and giggling in corners. 

I know it sounds odd, but you were just Tomoyo-chan, the one who let me be me, or whoever it was that I wanted to be at the time. I was perfectly comfortable… Until I turned thirteen…

I can remember that time in class when Hayao looked at you. Looking at you like that really scared me, because you weren't Tomoyo-chan any more. You were a GIRL. You were a _beautiful _girl. And after that, you were a girl I had a crush on.

After that I cared about what I looked like when I was with you, and everything I said, I wondered why I hadn't said something better. Something smarter, something deeper, something funnier… I avoided looking you in the eyes, because I was afraid that I would never be able to snap out of a stare.

I told myself that I was being silly, that this was Tomoyo-chan, who cared about me no matter what I did. I told myself, every time I went to meet you, that I would make the things the way they were before. This time, I vowed, I wouldn't blush so much, and I would talk to you easily without caring what came out of my mouth.

I promised things until I was blue in the face, but it was always the same. I was as awkward as ever.

You took my hand all the time then. You still do. I took it as something usual, and it never felt any different to when my mother took my hand, for example. You used to take my hand and drag me when the ice-cream truck pulled up. 

But after looking at you properly that day, the simple act of you taking my hand in yours made my stomach flip over and my face catch fire. I had never noticed before just how soft your pale hands were and I supposed that my hands felt rough to you. 

If we were sitting in a café or something and your leg brushed against mine, I flinched and moved back. When we were kids, we used to even sit in each other's _laps _all the time. The thought of doing that at thirteen was alien to me.

We used to sit squashed together on park benches, and we still did that, much to my discomfort. But I had to look at everything but your thigh against mine, and conversation was impossible apart from the odd nod.

You used to touch my face or hair or whatever all the time and I would do the same to you. If one of us had sauce on our faces, the other would wipe it off. If one of us had an eyelash on our cheek, the other would get it. If a bit of my hair was sticking up, you would just reach over and fix it. Just like that. You could say that we really had no boundaries- looking after the other was as natural as breathing.

But after that, your touch robbed me of my breath. 

We still did all those things as before- well, you more than me- the sitting squashed together, you reaching over to fix me, you holding my hand. And poor, naïve Tomoyo-chan- you never noticed that I was acting odd. You still smiled as before when I flinched away from you. Your usual happy expression never faltered when my face was doing an impression of a tomato. You still chatted away when I couldn't say anything.

And because you never asked me outright, I never saw any reason to tell you how I felt.

I'm eighteen now. Or, should I say, _we're _eighteen. Even after all these years, Tomoyo-chan and I are still _we_. Still otomodachis, still inseparable. We never dated all those years. I couldn't because I was in love with you, and you just… Chose not to. We were all the other needed. We are all the other will ever need. 

"Eriol-kun, are you daydreaming again?" Tomoyo asks in a fake angry voice which jolts me back to the present, her hands on her hips, trying to look stern despite the obvious smile attempting to burst on to her face.

"Why, of course not, Tomoyo-chan. We both know that I _never _daydream," I tease and she sighs, her violet eyes rolling to the heavens and back down again.

She runs forward and grabs my hand, pulling me to my feet.

"What is it?" I ask worriedly, wondering if something is wrong.

"The ice-cream truck just pulled up!" she cries, dragging me towards the parked truck.

And I can only smile.

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The End

A.n. I quite like this. *Grins* The first time I've ever written ANYTHING in the present tense. And I think it worked quite well. Tell me what you think, k? 


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